


Welcome To Eagle Tours

by flawedamythyst



Series: Seduction By Winglet [11]
Category: Cabin Pressure, Iron Man (Movies)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-20
Updated: 2017-01-17
Packaged: 2018-05-22 06:58:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,903
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6069631
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flawedamythyst/pseuds/flawedamythyst
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Martin's new work colleagues get to know him.</p><p>Thanks to Mistyzeo for checking for Britisms.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Pearl pinned on a smile as the door open.

"Good morning and welcome to Eagle Tours. How can I help you today?"

The man who came in was on the short side and vibrantly ginger. He looked tense but managed a weak smile in return. "Hi, uh, I'm Martin Crieff. I'm starting today. That is, I'm starting work today. Here. Um. I'm your new pilot. Not _your_ personal new pilot, the company's new pilot."

Pearl managed to turn her amusement at the babble into what was hopefully a welcoming expression. “Oh, of course. Nadine said you were starting today.”

There was something oddly familiar about him but Pearl couldn't put her finger on what it was. She hadn't been in work when he'd come to interview so this should be the first time she’d met him. Would she have seen him anywhere else? He was British, so that narrowed things down a bit. She’d never been to Europe; she’d barely ever left New York.

She shook his hand, hoping it would come to her later. "I'm Pearl, I'm the receptionist. Bear with me and I'll call up to the office and let them know you're here."

Nadine was already in, and she came down to take Martin out to meet Jeff, the chief pilot. Martin's obvious terror at the idea of meeting him rang all sorts of bells in Pearl's memory, but she just couldn't place where she'd seen him before. Wherever it was, he'd definitely worn that expression of barely-concealed panic.

Two days later, she was still stumped. She'd definitely seen his face somewhere but she wasn't sure she'd ever spoken to him. She’d have remembered that level of obsession with aviation. Had he been at one of Hayley's awful parties?

He was in the break room when she went in to have her lunch, eating a sandwich and frowning at the pile of endless paperwork that he'd been given to slog through before they'd let him take any clients up in the air.

"Heya," she said, heading for the fridge.

He looked up and found a tense smile, and suddenly looked less familiar. "Hello. How're you?"

She shrugged, pulling her lunch out and setting it in the microwave. "Same old. How're you settling in?"

"Okay," he said. "Uh, I think." A look of panic crossed his face. “I mean, no one's said I'm not. Has anyone said anything to you about me? No, of course not, sorry, I’m just being silly.”

There. That was it. At some point she had definitely seen him before.

"You been in the States long?" she asked, hoping to narrow down the timeframe a bit.

"About five days."

"Oh, wow, you're totally a newbie here then," she said. So much for having met him before. But where else could she have seen him?

"Well, I visited a lot with my last job," he said. "And, uh, to stay with my boyfriend."

Huh. There was no way Pearl would have pegged him as gay. "Is he why you moved over?"

"Yes," said Martin, and gave the first smile she'd seen from him that was completely free of any trace of tension. Clearly, he was smitten. Well, you'd have to be to move halfway around the world for someone. Pearl wasn’t sure she’d even move to Brooklyn for Frank.

The smile made him look a lot friendlier, so she decided to just go for it. “You know, I swear I recognise you from somewhere. We haven't met before, have we?”

The smile disappeared. “I don't think so.”

Pearl frowned, eyes darting over his face for a moment, then she sighed and shook her head slightly as the microwave beeped to signal that her lunch was ready. “You're just so familiar-looking.” She turned away to pull her lunch out then directed a grin over her shoulder. “You're not, like, Brit royalty or a minor noble or famous for something, are you? I read a lot of tabloids.”

He stared at her with a blank look that made her feel like she'd said the wrong thing. Did the English not joke about royalty? Eh, screw it. “My dad was an electrician,” he said, after a long pause.

Pearl shrugged and turned back to her lunch. “Maybe you just look like someone.”

****

The first time Jessie met Martin, it was first thing on a Monday morning. She’d just come back after a week off and was deep in the Monday blues, but managed to find a smile as she shook his hand.

"So, you're my new pilot," she said. "They went through the route and everything, yeah?"

Martin nodded. "Yes. I spent all last week doing paperwork and training."

"Excellent," she said, glancing down at the paperwork that Monika had given her. "We've got three flights today, first one is Mr and Mrs Rubio, just on the standard 45 minute tour, due to take off in an hour."

Martin nodded. He glanced over at the plane that they'd be in today. "I'll start the pre-flight checks."

Jessie raised her eyebrows. "We have an hour," she repeated. "Are you sure you don't want to start with coffee?"

Martin hesitated, looking torn. "I just want to make sure everything is okay. Familiarise myself with it all properly."

Oh great, she'd got stuck with the fastidious type. "Okay," she said. "Well, I'm getting coffee. I'll let you know when the clients are here."

"Right," he said. "Okay. Um, do I need to do anything with them? Greet them or...anything?"

She shook her head. "Nah, you stick to the plane, I'll deal with the people."

He visibly relaxed. "Okay, great. Um. Thanks."

She gave him another smile and headed for the break room. Maybe once she was pumped full of caffeine she'd feel better able to cope with both Monday and the sheer number of 'ums' it looked like she was going to have to get used to.

The Rubios were a newly-retired couple from Spain. By the time they'd arrived, Jessie had woken up enough to greet them with all the faux-cheerfulness she'd cultivated over her six years as a guide at Eagle Tours. She'd also had a gossip with Caleb, one of the other guides, and Ash, his pilot, about Martin's first week and what people had learnt about him, which wasn't much.

"He did all his paperwork painstakingly," said Ash. "Seriously, it was like a work of art. If there was an art of bureaucracy."

"I don't think anyone managed to get him to talk about anything other than planes or flying," said Caleb. "Seems he has a bit of a one-track-mind. Mind you, could be worse. Remember Rob and his insane desire to tell us every single golfing anecdote ever?"

They all shuddered at the memory and Jessie counted herself lucky, once again, that Rob had only stayed with them for six months before moving on.

When she took the Rubios out to the plane, Martin was in the pilot's seat, going over the controls, possibly for the hundredth time.

"This is your pilot, Martin," she introduced. "He's excellent, you're in safe hands with him."

Martin gave her a slightly startled look, but managed a smile as the Rubios climbed into the plane and settled in, talking to each other in Spanish.

"I always say that," said Jessie quietly to Martin. "Bit of a confidence boost before we go up in a tiny metal can. Are we ready to go?"

"Ah, yes," said Martin, glancing back at the controls. "Just five minutes until we’re cleared to start taxiing out."

"Okay, I'll get them sorted with drinks," said Jessie. Martin gave a shaky nod and turned back to the controls, and she wondered if maybe he was a bit nervous about his first flight. "It's going to be fine," she said. "No worries."

He managed a wobbly smile.

Jessie got the Rubios set up with a glass of champagne each and gave them the standard safety run-down, by which time they were ready to go.

The take off wasn't as smooth as Jed's had used to be, but then he'd been flying out of Linden Airport for his entire adult life by the time he'd retired. Jessie kept her _it's fine, everything is fine_ smile pinned on to keep the Rubios happy and started on the spiel about the general history of New York that she always began with.

They headed down the Hudson River and back, doing the usual loop around Ellis Island, by which time the Rubios were on their second glasses of champagne and were clearly enjoying themselves no end.

"And now we come to my favourite part of the tour," Jessie said, wishing she could have a glass of champagne as well. "Getting up close and personal with New York's famous skyscrapers."

She gave them her handful of facts about the Empire State and the Chrysler building, then they swooped down towards the one that usually caused the most amount of excitement.

"And here we see Avengers Tower coming up, home of New York's very own superhero team. First built by Tony Stark, also known as Iron Man, in 2012, and then heavily refurbished later that year after the Battle of New York, this building houses the New York offices of Stark Industries, as well as The Avengers themselves. Sometimes we see Iron Man or Thor flying in or out!"

That drew excited gasps from the Rubios, who leaned over to stare down at the building as if they could will the appearance of a superhero.

"Two weeks ago the Avengers launched their new plane, the Quinjet, which we've already seen flying out on important superhero business a few times."

For some reason that made Martin snort, but before Jessie could glare at him for interrupting her patter, the Rubios gasped and pointed down at the Tower. "Look! Look!"

She glanced over. Iron Man had taken flight off one of the balconies. "Oh, what a treat!" she said, abandoning the next section of her usual speech to churn out some Iron Man facts instead. "Iron Man is one of America's greatest superheroes. Businessman Tony Stark first donned the suit in 2008 in order to-"

He was flying directly at them. She found herself stuttering to a stop, wondering if he'd seen them. Surely he wouldn't just fly into the plane?

He swerved at the last minute to loop around them instead, close enough for them to see every detail of the suit. Jessie gaped.

"Oh, for god's sake," muttered Martin, which wasn't quite the reaction Jessie was having. She was too busy staring to glare at him for being a downer, though. Iron Man circled them again, waving cheerfully, then did a series of looping twirls and spins as if showing off.

The Rubios were loudly exclaiming in Spanish, snapping hundreds of photos.

"Oh, you're so lucky," Jessie managed to get out, remembering she was a guide first and foremost, not a spectator. "I've never seen him do anything like this before. It must be a slow day at Stark Industries."

Martin snorted again as Iron Man drew up alongside them as if flying in convoy and snapped off a smart salute. Jessie and the Rubios cheerfully waved back but Martin just glared at him.

"Martin!" hissed Jessie.

He glanced over his shoulder as if he'd forgotten she was there, then rolled his eyes and gave Iron Man a brief finger flick of a wave.

For some reason that sent Iron Man into dizzy glee, twirling through the air next to them, then he put his hand to the mouth of the suit and gestured towards them as if blowing a kiss before darting off again, heading back to the Tower.

"Wow," said Jessie.

"Wow, indeed," said Mrs Rubio.

Martin sighed again but Jessie ignored him. Who wouldn't be thrilled by that kind of superhero interaction? Jeez, were Brits really that jaded?

****

"Martin! Martin!" called Monika as she saw him pass the office door on his way to the hangar.

He paused and turned. "Yes?"

"Sorry, I completely forgot to get some emergency contact details off you when you first started. Can I get them now?" She hadn't so much forgotten as not thought it was worth bothering until she'd been sure he would stay longer than a few days. They'd had enough last-minute blow-outs for her not to waste any time on the paperwork. Martin had had the look of the kind who fell to pieces on the second day too, all nervous and twitching whenever someone asked him too many questions.

He'd stayed though, and now even seemed to be settling in. Jessie claimed he was okay, although Monika was reserving judgement. It took more than a cute British accent to win her over.

"Oh yes, of course," he said, coming into the office. "What do you need?"

She went through the stack of paperwork until she found the right form. "Full contact details and next of kin, please."

He took the form. "Um," he said. "Next of kin?"

"Yeah, just whoever we'd contact in an emergency," said Monika. "Not that we ever need to, but we've got to have it, you know?"

"Right," he said, slowly. "Of course."

He stared at the form as if it was going to bite him. Oh god, was he some kind of shady loner? Did he live in a basement and keep rat skulls as pets or something?Wait, hang on, Pearl had said he had a boyfriend, so that wasn't right. Actually, this might be the perfect chance to casually get some more information on him. She and Pearl had a bit of friendly rivalry going on when it came to who could gather the best gossip. Martin was such a blank slate at the moment that there must be something new she could pull out of him.

"Someone in this country if you can," she added. "I know you haven't been over here very long. Pearl said you moved over to be with your boyfriend? He'd do."

Martin swallowed and took a pen out of his pocket. "I take it this just gets filed away, then?"

"Oh yeah," said Monika, waving at the bank of filing cabinets behind her. "Stored away to go mouldy."

Martin bent over her desk to fill it in. When he'd finished, he folded it in half before handing it to her, gave an embarrassed smile, and fled the office before she could thank him.

She unfolded it immediately. Martin had put his emergency contact down as just 'Tony' and had only put down 'Park Avenue' as their address. Helpful. 

Park Avenue seemed pretty fancy for a pilot, maybe the boyfriend was loaded. She pictured Martin as a rich man's boy toy and then shook her head. Nope, didn't fit. Maybe they shared a creepy basement somewhere way up Park Avenue, and the rat skulls were their fake-kids.

****

In the three weeks since Martin had been at Eagle Tours, Ash hadn't really worked out how to have a proper conversation with him, although he had learnt a thing or two about interacting with him. The first thing was to avoid talking about flying unless you wanted to get trapped into a dissection of every minute detail of the topic. Ash liked his job but there was a limit on how much he was willing to talk about it. Just because he knew the lay-out of the airport at Nice didn't mean he wanted to spend an hour discussing the impact a strong southerly wind could have on a landing there.

The second thing about talking to Martin was how cagey he was about his personal life. Beyond the fact that he'd moved over from England to live with his boyfriend, no one knew much of anything about him. Even asking him what he did at the weekend got only a vague answer.

"Oh, we just hung out," he said, focusing on his sandwich. "Went out for a, uh, drive on Sunday. Usual stuff. What about you?"

There was a beep from his wrist before Ash could respond and Martin pulled his sleeve up to frown at his watch, pressing a couple of buttons.

Ash stared at it in surprise. "Is that- Martin! Is that a Starkwatch?!"

Martin looked at it as if seeing it for the first time. "Uh, yes."

"How did you get that? They're not out for another month!" asked Ash, trying to stop himself reaching out to touch it. Oh man, an actual Starkwatch. The height of technological wizardry. The perfect example of pure, distilled, human genius. "Can I have a look?"

Martin pressed his lips together and for a moment Ash thought he was going to refuse, but he unbuckled the strap and held it out. Ash took it with careful fingers. "Oh, wow. Is it true they include unlimited access to Starknet?"

The screen backdrop was a photo of a Spitfire. Ash probably could have guessed Martin would have something like that. He slid a finger across the screen to have a look and it flashed red.

_Unknown User_

"Fingerprint recognition," said Martin. "You have to input the people who can use it."

"Oh, wow," said Ash weakly. "No, seriously, how did you get this? It's incredible."

"It was a present," said Martin, taking it back from him. "From Tony. My, uh, my boyfriend. He's...uh. He's an engineer at Stark Industries."

He set his finger to the screen and it light up in green. Ash craned to see as he flicked through a few of the apps. "It's so pretty. What would it take for me to get one out of your boyfriend? I mean, I'm not gay, but I reckon I could give it a try for one of those."

That earned him a glare, which was probably warranted. Ash winced. "Sorry, sorry, I'm just freaking out a bit. I'm a bit of a tech-geek."

"That's okay," said Martin. "I think it's a bit wasted on me, to be honest. I'm only really interested in technology if it's on an aeroplane."

"Did you see about the new autopilot system that SI is developing?" asked Ash.

Martin's eyes lit up. "It's _incredible_ ," he breathed. “The AI interface alone!”

Okay, maybe Ash could find a way to have a conversation with him after all.

****

The break room at Eagle Tours was pretty nice compared with other companies Jeff had worked for, but it did always seem to have at least two or three people in it, most of them eager for a conversation. There was a strong culture of gossip that Jeff tried to avoid, not always with much luck. Sometimes he just needed a quiet ten minutes alone, which was why he was currently hiding out in the hangar, sat on a set of steps tucked behind his plane and playing Candy Crush.

A door opened and he peered across, through the plane windows, to see Martin come in. Internally he winced, and then felt bad.

It wasn't that he didn't like Martin, it was just that talking to him was so difficult. He seemed to have not realised that Chief Pilot wasn't an impressive title in a company that only had three pilots, and treated Jeff with an awe that made him either tongue-tied or almost completely incomprehensible.

Having just got through a morning tour with three noisy pre-teen boys and a mother who had clearly given up any attempt at discipline several years ago, Jeff was not in the mood to try and coax Martin through a casual chat. Feeling a bit mean, he ducked his head down lower so that he was out of sight.

Martin's footsteps headed over to his plane and there was silence. Probably carrying out one of his exhaustive checks. Safe enough to leave him to it, then. Jeff turned back to his phone.

There was a beep that echoed in the quiet of the hangar. Jeff heard movement from where Martin was, a quiet sigh and then his voice.

"Hi, Tony."

Tony. Was that the name of his boyfriend? Jeff couldn’t remember.

"I'm fine, just on my break."

Oh god, it wasn't one of those relationships where they had to contact each other every time they had a moment, was it?

"Actually, I called to find out how you are." There was a pause, then Martin sighed again and said, in a softer voice. "JARVIS sent me a message. Tony, please don't hide these things from me. You know I want to help."

"It's not stupid. It's normal, you know that."

Martin snorted. "Yeah, well, sometimes even you have to cope with reality, sorry. Seriously though, do you need me to come home?"

Jeff frowned. Martin was going to just pop off home because his boyfriend asked him to? That didn't quite fit with the picture Jeff had of his personality, not when it came to flying, anyway.

"It wouldn't be fucking up my day, you know I'll be there if you need me."

Jeff tried to remember if any of the gossip he'd tried not to listen to had related to the boyfriend having some kind of illness or other issue that might explain this conversation, and drew a blank. In fact, most of what he could remember was complaints about how little Martin had actually said about him. 

God, Jeff really shouldn't be hearing this conversation, especially as Martin thought he was alone.

"I've got another twenty minutes before I need to start pre-flight checks. Would me talking for a bit help?"

"Okay, well, let me think. Uh. Did I ever tell you about the incident with the Scottish cricket team? Right. We were hired to fly out to Douz..."

The story that followed absolutely had to have been made up. There was no way an actual airline would behave like that.

Martin told it as a monologue, with only very occasional pauses for his boyfriend to make comments. By the time he finished, nearly twenty minutes had passed and Jeff was beginning to worry that he was going to have to reveal his presence or risk being late for his own pre-flight checks.

"I need to go," said Martin. "How are you feeling now?"

"No, it's not- Tony. I love that you let me do this for you, you're not pathetic.”

“Okay, well, don't think of it like that, then. Think about it like you're not having a drink because if you're sober when I get back, I'll let you take me out for a trip to somewhere, um, secluded and high up where we can, um, you know."

 _Not having a drink_. Oh god, this really wasn't something Jeff should be listening to. He shut his eyes and silently cursed himself for being a coward. He was never going to be able to unknow that Martin’s boyfriend was a recovering alcoholic, or that he struggled with it this much.

“I was thinking somewhere a little less likely to be plastered with CCTV. I know everyone's seen footage of you naked already, but I like to maintain an element of mystery.”

“Is it a good enough plan to distract you from drinking for the next hour while I'm in the air?”

Jeff winced and wished he could shut his ears as effectively as he could his eyes.

“Because I know you, Tony,” said Martin in a softer voice. “You know how I feel about regulations, including drink-driving and -flying ones, and how much I trust you. You won't take me up if you've had even a drop of alcohol. You won't betray me like that. You'd tell me long before it got that far.”

"Okay, yeah, or you'll get JARVIS to do it. Either way, I know that if we go on a trip to get inappropriately intimate somewhere semi-public, you'll be stone-cold sober. And if you're not, we'll stay home and watch a DVD or something. Get inappropriately intimate on the sofa, although I guess that wouldn't be that inappropriate given how often we’ve done it before.”

“I'll only be flying for 45 minutes, I'll be able to call you after that if you want."

"Right, text me or something. And, Tony? I love you."

Martin hung up. He let out another sigh and Jeff peered over to see him rubbing at his face, then he turned and disappeared back into the main building. Jeff took his chance to get up, stretching in an attempt to shake away the lingering guilt. Next time, he'd just make his presence known.

And he definitely wouldn't mention any of this to Pearl or Monika, or any of the other gossip fiends in the company.

****

Mark only worked mornings, which meant he got to head home at around the same time that everyone else went to lunch. That was a good feeling.

On this particular day, he'd finished slightly later than normal, caught up on making sure the month-end accounts were all neatly sorted. He drove out of the airport, mind already on how much housework he could get done before he had to go and collect the kids from school. He saw Martin up ahead, walking into one of the restaurants in the strip mall across from the airport. He was with a man wearing a battered hoodie, a baseball cap and sunglasses. Mark squinted as he went by. Was there something familiar about him? He wasn't one of the other employees of Eagle Tours.

It was only when the man put a hand on the small of Martin's back to guide him through the door that Mark realised he'd just seen the infamous boyfriend that Monika and Pearl spent far too much work time conjecturing about. Huh.

His turning was coming up, so he put the moment out of his head in favour of clicking on his turn signal.

****

 

Jay was getting coffee before the last tour of the day, along with all the other pilots and guides, when Rachel from the ground crew came in.

"Major incident," she announced. "All flights grounded until further notice."

There was a collective groan from all present. An incident meant an unknown delay, but unless it went on until after dark, Nadine still made them hang around so they could take the guests up as soon as the authorities declared the airport open again.

"What's this?" asked Martin.

"Oh right, this would be your first one," said Jessie. "Welcome to New York, where sometimes we're not allowed to fly because we're being attacked by supervillains."

"Apparently, it's killer robots this time," said Rachel, heading through to the office to let the rest of the company know.

Jeff found the TV remote and switched the set in the corner on to a news channel. The incident was already being shown. Blurry footage of Battery Park showed about a dozen metal figures shooting electricity out of their arms. Captain America could just about be recognised running towards them, throwing his shield.

"Oh," said Martin, in almost a whimper. Right, he was new to New York and therefore probably hadn't yet got used to weird shit going on like this.

Jay gave him a reassuring smile. "Don't panic, the Avengers will sort it out. Just means we won't be able to take off until they do. There's a pretty strict no-fly moratorium whenever the Avengers are fighting."

There was a tradition at Eagle Tours of everyone gathering in the break room during an Avengers incident and watching it together. Jay pulled himself up onto a table at the back and settled in for the duration, wishing he'd thought to stash away some chips or popcorn or something. He thought that every single time this happened, he really had to start planning ahead.

On screen, an arrow buried itself in the chest of a robot, which promptly blew up. Jay gave a cheer. "You show 'em, Hawkeye! He's my favourite," he explained to Martin.

Martin gave him a startled look that gave away how freaked out he was, but he pulled himself together enough to sit down on the table next to him. "Really?" he asked faintly.

"Hell yeah," said Jay as the office staff started to come in, filling up the room. Too late, suckers, he'd already called shotgun on the best view of the TV. "He goes after bad guys with a bow and arrow. What's not to love?"

"You're so wrong," said Whitney. "Okay, the exploding arrows are cool, but why have a favourite who can't make a much bigger mess than that? I want massive explosions from my superheroes."

The camera panned up to show Iron Man soaring down, blasting at a robot before pulling up.

"Oh," exhaled Martin, almost under his breath. Jay glanced over to see that he'd gone a bit pale.

"Hey, no need to look worried," he said. "They do this all the time. They'll take them out, then we can get on with the last set of tours."

Martin glanced at him and managed a smile, but it looked very fake. Well, if the guy wasn't used to living in a city where killer robots were just a thing that happened, it might take some getting used to. Particularly if that guy was kinda a wimp which, no offence to Martin, he seemed to be.

"Where's Black Widow?" asked Monika. "She's my favourite."

“I don't think she's there,” said Caleb. “They haven’t shown her. Maybe she's out of town.”

Martin opened his mouth as if to say something and then shut it again. He pulled out his phone instead. What the hell was more interesting on his phone than the killer robot fight going on in front of him?

The Avengers swung into the battle with gusto on screen and Jay settled back to watch, trying to ignore the twitching from next to him. Martin fiddled with his phone for a while, then pulled out a set of headphones and attached it, putting one in his ear. Jesus, was he listening to some tunes whilst watching this? Or, god, a podcast or something? Jay was willing to bet Martin was hooked on at least three different aviation podcasts, but that didn't mean now was a good time to catch up on them.

"There you go," said Jeff with satisfaction as Captain America managed to hit three at once with one throw of his shield. "That's what I'm talking about. That's a real hero."

"It's not keeping them down," pointed out Hal as the robots clambered back to their feet. One of them sent an arcing flash of lightning at Captain America, who dived out of the way, rolled and sprang to his feet in time to hit another robot in the face.

"Who cares? He looks damn cool," said Jessie. "And he's fucking hot."

Jay nudged Martin, who gave him a wild look before focusing on his face. "Who's your favourite, then?"

Martin blinked. "Iron Man," he said, as if it should be obvious.

"Because he can fly, right?" said Ash.

"Amongst other things," said Martin, but didn't go into any details.

The cameraman had found a good angle to get the whole battle scene in one frame, even showing Iron Man above the battle, swooping down and picking up the occasional robot, then dropping them to crack on the ground. He looked like he was having a great time.

Most of the robots were lying in pieces within half an hour and Jay was beginning to think they'd be able to get into the sky soon and avoid the hassle of having to reschedule all the tours for another day. Beside him, Martin suddenly twitched and stiffened and Jay glanced over to see all the blood had drained from his face.

"Oh, shit," said Hal, and he turned back to the screen to see that two of the robots had joined forces to blast Iron Man with electricity. He wobbled dangerously in the sky and then dropped like a stone for a couple of metres before flying on.

"Oh god," said Martin, just as another bolt hit Iron Man. This time, he just plummeted straight down, apparently having lost all power. He wasn't that far up, but Jay still winced as he smashed into the ground.

Robots converged on him, but didn't get far. Captain America smashed through them just as arrows thudded into two of them, sparks flying out.

"Come on," Martin muttered to himself. "Come on, come on, come on."

Iron Man shook himself and then slowly rose to his knees. Martin let out a puff of air.

"Wow, he really is your favourite, isn't he?" said Jay.

Martin nodded, but didn't look away from the screen. His hand was clenched around his phone so tightly that his knuckles had gone white.

Iron Man was struggling to get up. Behind him, a robot raised a metal arm to crash down on his helmet, but just as he brought it down, Iron Man's own arm came up to meet it, stopping it in place. He rose to his feet as the room cheered for him, turned, and took out the robot with a blast of repulsor.

It was the last one standing. Jay let out a sigh of relief and glanced at the clock, wondering how long it would take the officials to lift the no-fly order. Beside him, Martin went limp with relief. He'd need to learn to cope with these things better than that if he was going to live in New York for long.

****

Rachel sat down at one of the tables in the break room, opened her lunch box and sighed.

"I take it it's not very inspiring," said Martin, who was already sat at the table.

"It was going to be," said Rachel, pulling out her sandwich and taking a bite. "But then my roommate decided that my food was fair game last night. I'm basically eating bread and butter until I can get to the store."

Martin made a face. "I used to have a housemate like that. You couldn't leave anything in the fridge and trust it would be there when you got back."

"She's not even the worst one I live with at the moment," said Rachel. "At least she cleans on occasion. There's one guy, I swear, he's never even thrown his own trash away. It's like living with an animal."

"It was the noisy ones that I always hated the most," said Martin. "There was one guy who used to play hardcore garage music at all hours of the night." He made a face. "I suppose it was my fault for living with students and expecting them to have sane living patterns."

Rachel shook her head. "I'm pretty sure even students would be easier to live with than some of these guys. I swear, the minute I have enough to move out, I'll do it a heartbeat. Last week two of them got into a bet over who could eat the most chillis. It get pretty messy."

Martin made a commiserating face. "The only thing worse than a betting war is a prank war. I've got a guy I live with now who spends most of his free time coming up with frighteningly elaborate pranks to play on the rest of us."

Rachel made a face. "God, at least I get to stay out of it all if I want. How many roomies do you have?"

Martin gave an awkward shrug. "It changes. I, uh, I live with my boyfriend, but it's a big place and some of his friends stay there as well, when they're in town. It's not that bad, they're all nice enough. Better than the guys I lived with for a bit in England."

That sounded kinda like a squat. Probably best not to comment on it. "There's a difference between being nice and being easy to live with," pointed out Rachel.

"Yeah," agreed Martin. "I suppose I should be glad they're not all there all the time. There are some big personalities. One guy who feels the urge to shout loudly enough to wake the whole place if he has a particularly good poptart, another who can project moral disapproval through three walls, and a woman who seems to know your every darkest secret without even trying."

This was probably the longest conversation Rachel had had with Martin, at least that wasn't about the maintenance she did on the his plane, but she would happily put money on the fact that no one would ever describe him as 'a big personality'. He was probably quite restful to live with, as long as you sorted out some kind of safe word on aviation conversations so you could escape them when they reached the ten minute mark.

"When it comes to people I live with, I want the dullest people possible," she said. "Dull, tidy and respectful of other people's property."

"Precisely," said Martin, then frowned. "Although, I should point out that I moved over here to live with Tony, and he is none of those things."

"Oh well, _boyfriends_ ," said Rachel, with feeling. "Completely different matter. You don't want dull in a boyfriend."

"Yeah," he agreed, and stood up. "Did you want some coffee?"

"Please," she said, looking back at her incredibly sad lunch. "Might make this feel like worth swallowing."

****

Organising the Eagle Tours Christmas meal had started out so well. Whitney had been determined that this year, he was going to be systematic about it. He'd had a list. He'd made bullet points. He'd discussed it with Nadine. He'd got that smug, glowing feeling of being on top of something.

And then it had all gone to shit. Somehow, they were two weeks away, he had no idea of numbers and only the barest idea of what they were doing. The restaurant would only hold the provisional booking he'd made back when he'd been organised if he got them a precise headcount in the next twenty-four hours, along with full menu details because god forbid they only get ten days notice on what to cook.

He abandoned all his actual work in favour of camping out in the break room, accosting people and interrogating them about whether or not they were coming, if they were bringing a guest, and what they wanted to eat.

"I don't know," said Hal. "I'll have to see if Julia is doing anything. Can I let you know?"

Whitney felt himself twitch. "You have until 9 am tomorrow morning," he hissed.

"She may need to-" started Hal.

"No later than 9! And I need your menu choices then as well!"

Hal's eyes went wide and he backed away. "Um. Right. I'll text her now."

"Do!"

As Hal left, Whitney heard him say to someone outside, "It’s definitely nearly Christmas. Whitney's having his annual breakdown over the Christmas meal."

"Oh god," said Jeff's voice. "Maybe I'll get a coffee later."

The break room stayed frustratingly empty. Whitney was beginning to wonder if he should just hunt everyone down one by one, possibly with a tranquilliser gun, when Martin wandered in.

Whitney pounced on him. "Martin! Are you coming to the Christmas meal?"

Martin froze. "Uh-" he stuttered.

"I need to know as soon as possible," said Whitney. "You've got a boyfriend, don’t you? I'll need to know if he's coming as well. And your menu choices, it's very important I have them by tomorrow morning at the very latest. 9AM tomorrow, I'll need them first thing!"

Martin's eyes darted from side-to-side like a trapped animal. "Uh, when is it?"

Whitney's frustration went up a notch. "The notice has been on the board for weeks! Weeks!!"

Jessie came in, took one look at Whitney's face and turned to leave. Whitney wasn't having that. "Stop!" he demanded. "Jessie, this is very important."

Jessie let out a sigh and turned back. "You know, Whitney, I'm pretty sure Nadine only assigns this to you every year because she thinks it's hilarious when you get like this."

Whitney ignored that. "Are you bringing a partner?"

She made a face. "Probably not. Me and Nick are on a bit of an 'off' at the moment."

Whitney was a firm believer in 'the more, the merrier'. Or at least, 'the more, the less we have to listen to Mark talk about his kids'. "And there's no one else you could bring? No way you could reconcile with him just for the one night?"

"No," she said.

Martin had edged past Whitney to the coffee machine. Whitney whirled to point at him. "Then you'll _have_ to bring your boyfriend."

Martin's eyes widened. "Uh, I don't-"

"No," said Whitney. "No prevarications. If Jessie is letting down the side, then the rest of us need to step up."

Jessie rolled her eyes and rested a hand on Whitney's shoulder. "Calm down," she said. "It's just a meal."

Maybe she had a point. He took a breath. "It's more fun if people bring partners."

"True," agreed Jessie. She gave Martin a grin. "Besides, I really wanna meet Martin's boyfriend."

"Ooh, me too," said Pearl, coming in.

Whitney's eyes lit on her and he opened his mouth.

She held up a hand. "I'm coming, and so is Frank." She held out a piece of paper. “Our menu choices.”

Whitney shut his mouth, and noted that down on his list. Right, that was four confirmations, three maybes and five complete question marks. Time to push that number up a bit.

"Martin, I need a decision."

Jessie sighed. "Jesus, Whitney. Martin, don't let his aggressive attitude put you off. The meal is usually a lot of fun, it's just the organisation of it that drives Whitney into a crazed monster."

"And you should definitely bring the boyfriend," added Pearl.

Martin hesitated. "I don't know-" He stopped himself. "I'll, um, I'll let you know. I'll just-"

He pulled out his phone and disappeared outside.

"Tell me by 9am!" Whitney called after him. “And don't forget the menu choices! Or you'll be eating gruel!”

****

Hal arrived in the break room first thing that morning to find Whitney camped out in front of the coffee machine, refusing to let anyone near it until they'd given him their menu choices for the Christmas meal. Safe in the knowledge that he and Julia both had ticks next to their names on Whitney's sheet and that therefore he'd be allowed his caffeine fix, Hal was able to find the whole thing hilarious.

He was pretty alone in that. The room was filled with staff members desperate for their morning coffee, all trying to call their partners and interrogate them about their food preferences. Hal sidled past them to the coffee machine, smirking when he caught Jeff's glare from where he was listing starters down the phone to his wife. His fault if he hadn't yet learnt to avoid angering Whitney at this time of year.

"I can't get hold of Kyle," wailed Monika. "I'm sure he'll text me back, though, I'll let you know when he does. If I can just have-"

"No coffee until I have his choices!" snapped Whitney. “There are no exceptions to the rule!”

Monika wilted.

Martin came in and stopped dead when he saw the scene. Poor guy had probably only ever seen sane people organising work events. "What-" he managed to get out before Whitney rounded on him.

"No coffee until I have your Christmas meal details!"

Martin sent the coffee machine a longing look. Hal raised his mug and toasted him.

"Is the boyfriend coming?" asked Monika.

"Um," said Martin. He glanced around the room, which now contained roughly ninety percent of the company. "Well, that's-"

"I need a yes or a no today," insisted Whitney. "Now!"

Martin blinked at him. "It’s sort of up to you guys," he said.

There was a confused silence, broken only by Jeff saying down the phone, in a frustrated voice, "No, you can't think about it and let me know. Just pick a damn dessert."

"What do you mean? You know he's invited," said Whitney.

"This isn't a fear of homophobia thing, is it?" said Caleb. "Cos that's totally not a problem here."

"No, it's not that," said Martin. "It's. Um. Well, there's something I haven't told you about Tony."

Monika laughed. "You're kidding, right? There's almost nothing you have told us about him! We don't even have your full address, only that you're on Park Avenue."

"Park Avenue?" repeated Rachel. "That's pretty fancy. I kinda thought you lived- um.” She visibly paused and changed what she'd been going to say, “-with a lot of roommates. If your guy can afford Park Avenue, how come you need roomies?"

“He don't _need_ them,” said Martin. “It's just- uh, a big place, and they have a sort of communal living thing going on.”

Martin lived in a commune? Hal perked up. This sounded interesting. Was the boyfriend going to turn out to be some kind of guru? Was Martin just one of a host of boyfriends, all of whom thought they were the special spouse of their idol? Were they going to have to organise a cult intervention?

Would he get to make a banner for it?

"He owns a big place on _Park Avenue_? What the hell does he do?" asked Pearl.

"Oh! I know this,” said Ash. “He's an engineer at Stark Industries.”

An engineer at the biggest tech company in the world. Hmmm, unlikely to be running a cult in his spare time then, although they shouldn't count it out.

“I thought you were whining that we didn't know anything about him,” said Caleb to Pearl and Monika. “We seem to know his job, his address and his living arrangements. What the hell else is there to know?”

"And I've seen him," added Mark.

Martin gave him a startled look. "What?"

"Well," amended Mark. "I've seen his back. I saw you heading into a restaurant while I was driving home one day."

"Oh," said Martin. "Right."

"So what's the big secret?" asked Whitney. "And does he want the turkey or the fish?"

Martin's tongue darted out to wet his lower lip and he glanced around the room, then drew in a deep breath. Hal secretly crossed his fingers for _He's the son of God_.

"He's, um, he's not just an engineer at Stark Industries. He's. Well. He's Tony Stark."

Hal felt his eyebrows raise. No way. There was no way that Martin, who Hal liked but was prepared to admit was not a particularly dashing guy, there was _no way_ he was going out with an international superhero playboy like Tony Stark.

"Oh!" said Pearl. "Oh, wow! That's it! That's where I recognised you from! You have been in my magazines!"

Martin twitched uncomfortably. "Probably. I mean, I try not to be, but they just keep taking pictures when we're out."

Ash had started tapping away at the phone. "Oh man," he said, turning it to show everyone the screen. "Look."

It was an obvious paparazzi shot, taken on the street somewhere. Tony Stark was staring straight at the camera with a glare while Martin, who was holding his hand, appeared oblivious to the photographer, his free hand raised as if he was mid-explanation. It was a gesture Hal had seen often enough from him when he was deep in one of his dull aviation stories.

Oh man, it was true. That was Martin holding hands with Tony Stark, with _Iron Man_. This was even better than a cult.

He looked at Martin again, trying to work out how it was possible. What had he missed about him?

Martin was scowling at the photo. "When the hell did they take that?"

“Wait, so, hang on,” said Rachel, staring at the photo. “The roomies you were complaining about were _Avengers_!? Oh, hell no, you don't get to put them in the same category as the slimeballs I live with!”

Martin shrugged. “I did say they were better than the ones I had in England.”

"This explains so much,” said Jessie, slowly. “He came and gave us a fly-by on your first flight."

"Yeah," said Martin, "he thinks he's funny. Well, he is a lot of the time, but that just made me look unprofessional.”

Jessie started to frown. “How did it-?”

"Holy crap," interrupted Caleb. "Wait, so, Tony Stark is coming to our Christmas meal?"

“Oh my god,” said Ash. “Will he bring along some awesome tech? Please, I've been good this year, Santa, I swear.”

Martin wiped the frown off his face. “Well, see, it's- That kind of thing is why it's not a definite,” he said, gesturing at the photo. “Those bastards follow us around _everywhere_. If Tony comes to the meal, there's a high chance so will half the paparazzi in New York.”

"Then we'll tell them to fuck off," said Jeff. "You should be able to bring your partner to a work event."

"Hell yeah," said Jessie. “Unless he's an utter asshole like Nick.”

Okay, so Jessie and Nick were in one of their extreme 'off' phases. Hal gave it a week before she was turning up with hickeys and a guiltily happy smile.

"Especially if it means we get to meet Tony Stark," added Monika.

Whitney held up a hand. "But only if you have your menu choices for me."

Martin pulled out a piece of paper and held it up with a flourish. Whitney ripped it from his hand and ticked him off on his list. Hal watched his shoulders, and his insanity, drop a notch. The hilarity of Whitney’s annual breakdown was nearly over until next year.

"Does this mean I'm allowed coffee?" asked Martin.

Whitney waved at the machine. "Go nuts."

****

Having Martin living in the Tower was still an awesome thing of joy and wonder to Tony, even after a couple of months. He'd settled in pretty well, probably helped by the fact that he was the only person in the place who had the kind of regular schedule that a 9-5 job prompted. Half the time Tony didn't even need to ask JARVIS where Martin was when he emerged from an engineering binge; he just had to check the time.

Plus, it was a lot easier to combat the occasional alcohol cravings that he was still prone to when he knew Martin was just a few rooms away, or would be getting back from work in a couple of hours. Actually, that was the best thing by a long shot, that he no longer counted down 'time until I see Martin again' in days, but in hours.

Of course, that didn't mean that everything had changed.

“You know, if you'd let me buy you that shirt-”

“I can buy my own shirts,” said Martin stubbornly, pulling on a generic white one that made Tony sigh, because it was just going to look _normal_ on him. Normal was for dull people, not his Spitfire.

“Yeah, okay, work shirts and all that, fair enough, but can't your boyfriend treat you to a nice shirt every now and then, for special occasions?” said Tony, pulling on his own glad rags.

“My boyfriend treats me to more than enough,” said Martin. “I live rent-free with no bills, he won't even let me contribute towards the food, plus he gives me a new phone pretty much every other month, not to mention a Starkwatch and-”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” said Tony. “All of that is basically free to me, though. Even the food - compared to a Norse god, a super-soldier and a guy who regularly burns tens of thousands of calories turning into a giant rage monster, you eat so little it's had no impact on the bill at all. I should be allowed to buy you the occasional present as well, c'mon, Spitfire. Enjoy the cherries on your cake.”

Martin snorted. “At this point it feels like I've got a whole bowl of cherries to get through before I even find the cake.”

“Aw, you say the sweetest things,” said Tony, and paused while doing up his tie in order to kiss Martin. “But, seriously, let me buy you a fancy Christmas shirt. You'll be able to get multiple uses out of it, after all, we've got a bunch of Christmas shit we'll have to go to.”

Martin froze. “We do?”

Whoops. Had Tony not mentioned that before? “Yeah. Well, I mean, I do, you probably don't have to come to any of it, but you've been invited and you know I always have more fun if you're with me. There's the Avengers party, well, there are two of them, the one that's all the SHIELD guys and support crew and such, and then we tend to have dinner on Christmas Eve just the actual team. SI has a whole bunch of parties, one for each department, and I usually show my face at all of them for half an hour or so, but you can skip those. There's two main ones, the big one for the whole company and then another that's just glad-handing investors and partner companies and all that bullshit. Actually, you'll probably want to skip those too, they're dull as hell.” 

He paused and thought about what Martin might actually be interested in, rather than what Pepper would tell him was the most important for him to be seen at. “Come to the aviation department's one though, they've hired the Cradle of Aviation Museum. And there's a Maria Stark Foundation one that most of the other Avengers will come to. And the SHIELD one that's too super-secret for invites and which Fury likes to pretend doesn't happen, cos it's on the heli-carrier and we can sneak off so you can see the engines and the control room.”

Martin's eyes looked like they were going to burst out of his head. “That's a lot of parties,” he croaked.

“That's not counting all the plus-ones on invites I've been sent,” said Tony. “But Pepper chucks out most of those before I even see them. Other people's parties are dull.”

“Christ,” said Martin. “This is- Tony. This is the first year I've even had a work do of my own. Unless you count the party we tried to have in the cockpit of GERTI a year or two back, but I think only Arthur would count that.”

“Well, see, that's why you need a new shirt for the season. And maybe a festive tie,” said Tony, because he'd never learnt how to not push.

Martin let out a sigh. “Well, it's too late for tonight,” he said. “Maybe tomorrow we can go and-”

Tony spun around and threw open his wardrobe, pulling out the shirt and tie he'd bought nearly two weeks ago. “Tada!”

Martin looked at it, then at Tony, who kept a grin plastered on his face, hoping he wasn't going to get an earful for buying stuff Martin had already told him not.

Instead, Martin just shook his head. “I probably should have seen that coming,” he said, and held out his hand. “Okay, give it here.”

Tony beamed and passed it over.

Martin looked even more handsome in it than Tony had thought he would. The shirt was silver, matching the tie which was dark blue with silver snowflakes scattered across it. Martin looked so handsome that Tony was kinda tempted to just take him to bed and ignore the whole work Christmas dinner thing entirely.

Martin probably wouldn't go for that, though. And it wasn't as if Tony couldn't have sex with him afterwards. And tomorrow morning. He mentally scheduled off some time for that.

“Okay,” said Martin, pulling down at his sleeves awkwardly. “How do I look?”

“Perfect,” said Tony, kissing him. “Sexy as hell. C'mon, I've got a car that matches that tie as well.”

Martin snorted as they headed out of the bedroom to the nearest elevator. “I can't believe we're picking a car based on our outfits.”

“How else would you pick a car?” asked Tony, grinning at him.

****

The restaurant was in New Jersey, which made sense given the company was based in Linden, but still made Tony twitch a bit. It didn't help that he was already feeling a bit wound tight about this one.

He couldn't seem to stop dwelling on the fact that Martin hadn't told his colleagues who he was dating until two weeks ago. Tony could understand maybe not wanting _dating a superhero_ to be the very first thing people knew about you, but surely after a week or two at a new job, once you were settled in, you might casually mention it? Given the kind of gossipy environment which Eagle Tours seemed to have, he must have actively been avoiding mentioning it.

Tony was trying really hard not to give in to the insecurity that the idea of being kept a secret made rise up in him, but it was hard. After all, it wasn't as if he couldn't understand why Martin wouldn't want to admit his boyfriend was internationally renowned as a playboy, or that he was a decade older than him, or-

Nope. Tony wasn't going to dwell on this. Martin had just wanted to downplay it, no big deal, no reason to freak out now that Tony was actually meeting the guys Martin had wanted to keep him a secret from. None at all.

“We're a bit late,” fussed Martin.

Tony just snorted. “We're not late, we're making an entrance,” he corrected. He held his hand out to him.

Martin rolled his eyes but couldn't keep in a smile as he took it, and they entered the restaurant together.

The maître d took one look at Tony and went white. “Mr. Stark! We didn't know you were coming in. Did we?” He glanced down at the reservations book in panic.

Martin cleared his throat. “We're here for the Eagle Tours Christmas meal.”

That didn't seem to reassure the maître d. “Oh!” he said, and turned to make furious facial expressions at the nearest waiter, who immediately dashed off in the direction of the kitchens. Tony had a feeling they were going to be getting some really excellent service tonight. 

“Of course. This way, please.” He swept them through the restaurant to a long table at the back that was already filled with people. 

Tony plastered on his best smile as they all turned to look.

“Hi guys," said Martin. Tony could feel the palm of his hand getting sweaty against his and wondered why he was getting nervous. He was the one who actually knew these people.

“Hi Martin,” said a woman, her eyes barely brushing over him before she focused on Tony.

“Uh, this is Tony,” said Martin, as if anyone around the table didn't know exactly who he was. Tony tried to keep in his fond smile but he wasn't sure he managed it.

“Hey, everyone,” he said, giving a little wave.

“Jesus Christ, it was true,” muttered someone further down the table. Martin twitched.

“Okay, great,” said Tony. “Is that two spare seats there?” He dropped Martin's hand to put a hand on his back and guide him to the empty seats.

That cut down the number of people staring them to the four or five sitting closest to them. The conversation over the rest of the table picked up again, although there was a muttering tone to it that made Tony think he was the main topic of conversation.

“That's a nice tie,” said the woman next to Martin.

Martin glanced down as if he'd forgotten he was wearing it and then found a smile. “Thanks.”

“I told you,” said Tony, with a grin. God, he loved being proved right.

“I'm Jessie,” said the woman.

“Ah, you're the guide Martin flies around,” said Tony, recognising the name. “He's told me loads about you.”

She blinked. “Has he?” she asked, sending Martin a sideways look.

“Yup,” said Tony. “Apparently you know an impressive amount about the history of New York.”

“Ah,” she said. “Flattery. I can work with that.”

“I didn't-” started Martin. “I just said that hearing you on the first few days taught me a lot about New York that I didn't know.”

“You'd been living here less than a month at that point,” pointed out the guy opposite. “I'm pretty sure a homeless guy in Central Park could have told you stuff you didn't know.”

“If you want to know a lot of fascinating stuff, you should get Steve to take you around the part of Brooklyn where he grew up,” said Tony. “Fair warning, though, it usually ends in a rant about the Dodgers. He's pretty bitter still.”

There was another long silence. “Is that Captain America?” asked the older guy sitting opposite Tony, with an aura of wonder.

Right, casually name-dropping Cap tended to need a bit of a lead-in with regular folks. Particularly with ones of the right age to have collected all the comics when they were a kid.

Martin broke the moment with a frown. “Which sport are the Dodgers again?”

“Baseball,” said the guy opposite with a sigh. “How can you not know that?”

“Oh right,” said Martin. “That's the one that's a weird cross between rounders and cricket, right?”

He managed just the right tone of 'clueless-Englishman' and even threw in an innocent blink. God, Tony loved him.

The guy clearly had no idea Martin was teasing him, because he glared. “It's not weird. _Cricket_ is weird.”

“Okay, Hal, take it back a notch,” said the woman next to him. She smiled at Martin. “I'm Julia, Hal's wife.”

“It's good to meet you,” said Martin.

There were a flurry of introductions that meant Tony got everyone's name and was able to fit them together with the things Martin had told him. The older guy opposite was Jeff, the chief pilot, who Martin tended to talk about as if he were a god. Mind you, Martin talked like that about half the pilots he met. Next to him was his wife, Lottie, and then next to Tony was Ash, the third pilot.

Tony was completely surrounded by pilots. He kinda wished he'd bought a winglet along with him before he remembered that Martin's obsession with them wasn't particularly representative of the profession. He'd just have to wow them using his actual personality.

“Martin let me have a look at his Starkwatch,” said Ash. “It's completely amazing.”

Oh thank god, Tony could use technology to wow them after all. “The next generation is going to have a holographic interface,” he said.

Ash's eyes went wide. “Oh, wow,” he croaked. Oh yeah, job done.

“Red or white?” Hal asked, and Tony turned to see him holding up one of the wine bottles from the centre of the table.

Ah, crap. Tony had got so used to everyone around him knowing not to offer him alcohol that he'd forgotten to come up with an excuse for this.

Help came from an unlikely source. “Or are you stuck with the driving, like I am?” asked Jeff.

“Oh, come on, you must have a chauffeur for that,” said Hal.

“It's his night off,” said Tony. “Just water, thanks.”

Jeff picked up the jug and poured him some.

Hal shook his head. “I'm driving too, but I'm still gonna have a small one. I'da thought Tony Stark would-”

“Hal, have you ever heard Martin on the subject of rules?” interrupted Jeff.

Hal frowned. “What's that got to do with anything?”

“Okay, the fact that you're asking that proves that you haven't,” said Tony, taking a sip of his water. “Cos, trust me, no way is he going to let me take him home if there's even a hint of rule-bending going on.”

He sent a sideways look at Martin, who obligingly started up his usual rant. “Rule- _bending_ is just a fancy way of saying _rule-breaking_. Rules are there for a reason, you can't just-”

Tony relaxed and let him get on with it. By the time he was done, everyone would have forgotten what had started him off in favour of making a prominent mental note never to mention rule-breaking again. Tony reached out under the table to put his hand on Martin's thigh in thanks, and a moment later Martin had taken it and given it a squeeze.

They were halfway through the main course when Tony's phone vibrated. He pulled it out to see that Pepper was calling.

“I should probably take this,” he said, giving Martin an apologetic look as he stood up. Martin just nodded.

“Hey, Pep,” Tony answered the phone as he headed outside to find somewhere quiet.

“Tony. I'm sorry to disturb you, but it's about the Ghincorp merger.”

Tony sighed. The whole merger had been nothing but a headache from the beginning. “Okay, go on,” he said, settling against the wall around the corner from the restaurant entrance, where he was out of sight.

It took twenty minutes of hashing things out to fix the latest snafu. By the time Tony was finally able to hang up, he was pretty sure he'd lost the rest of his starter and was really hoping his main wasn't already getting cold.

“Where did Stark take off to?” asked a voice near-by.

Tony ducked his head around the corner to see a handful of people from the company smoking. Well, that boded well for the main course not being out yet.

“He got a phone call,” said a voice that Tony recognised as Jeff's.

“You think he had to rush off to do superhero stuff?” said someone Tony didn't know, who had been sitting a bit further down the table.

The normal thing to do would be to go around there and pretend he hadn't heard, and not stay here and sneakily eavesdrop. Tony never did the normal thing if he could help it.

“I don't think so. I reckon Martin would be looking way more freaked out if there were. You know how he gets whenever there's an incident.” Tony didn't know that voice either.

“Man, I still can't believe he didn't tell us his boyfriend was _Tony fucking Stark_. I mean, I'd have had a badge made if it was me.”

“You had a badge made when you completed _Call Of Duty_.”

“I like badges, so sue me. The point remains: if you have a famous boyfriend, you brag about it. Right?”

It was Jeff who replied. “I think it's that Martin doesn't think of it as having a famous boyfriend,” he said, slowly. “I mean, we worked out we actually knew a lot about him before that, right? We knew he was an engineer, and lived with a bunch of his friends, and things like that. I think those are the things Martin cares about when it comes to Tony, so they were the things that came up.”

“You think he hadn't noticed his boyfriend was Iron Man?” asked someone else, incredulously.

“He'd noticed, I just don't think he cared,” said Jeff, “and if he didn't care, why would he mention it?”

That wasn’t quite right, but it was close enough to make Tony feel a wave of fondness and love for Martin, who only ever cared about the Stark name when it came attached to a winglet. God, he was an idiot. He should have figured that out for himself without needing some guy who had only known Martin a couple of months to tell him.

He went back around the corner, putting his phone away as if he'd only just hung up and hadn't at all been eavesdropping.

“Hey guys,” he said, but didn't stop to chat. He had to get back to his Spitfire, who always saw him as Tony first, and Stark second. Fucking perfect.


	2. The Phone Call

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bonus ficlet set not long after Christmas.
> 
> Written from a prompt by In_the_bottle.

Pearl picked up the phone. “Thank you for calling Eagle Tours, this is Pearl speaking. How may I help?”

“Can I talk to Skip?”

“I'm afraid there's no one of that name here,” said Pearl.

“Oh,” said the voice and hung up without saying anything else. Pearl put the receiver down and turned back to the game of Solitaire she had almost managed to complete.

A second later, the phone rang again.

“Thank you for calling Eagle Tours, this is Pearl speaking. How may I help?”

“Yes, sorry, me again, I forgot he's not Skip any more. Well, I mean, he is still _Skip_ , but that doesn't mean he's _Skip_.”

Pearl had no idea what any of that meant, but the guy calling was obviously British, so she was beginning to have a sneaking suspicion she knew what this was about. That didn't mean she was going to make it easy. “Who is it you'd like to talk to?”

“Please may I speak to Captain Martin Crieff,” said the voice, emphasising the full name as if the speaker were proud of himself for having got it right.

“I'm afraid Captain Crieff is currently in the air,” said Pearl, doing her best to keep her tone professional and not just starting to snigger at this dude. “Will he know who's calling?”

“I hope so,” said the guy. “I mean, he knew me before, he should know me now. Do people forget things if they're a long way away from them? No, wait, of course not, I'm being silly, Tony didn't forget Martin when he was a long way away, so Skip will remember me. Also, Mum says I'm very memorable.”

Pearl was certainly going to remember this call for a while. “May I take your name?” she tried again.

“Oh yes, of course. I'm Arthur. Arthur Shappey, but Skip shouldn't need my surname, unless he really has forgotten about us already.”

Pearl wrote that down, relieved to finally be getting somewhere. “Can I take a message?”

“Um. No, probably best not,” said Arthur. “I'm not very good at leaving messages. People always seem to get the wrong idea, and I don't want Skip to think that his mother's dead or anything. Oh god! His mother's not dead! Please make it very clear that his mother's not dead.”

“Would it be better if I just didn't mention his mother?” asked Pearl.

“Yes, yes, that's a good idea,” said Arthur. “Tell him it's about his van. Um, but his van's not dead either! Make that clear. And also, it's my van now, sort of.”

_About a van that isn't dead,_ Pearl wrote down. “Does he have a number to reach you on?”

“Oh yes, several,” said Arthur. “Tell him Mum's on a weekend with Herc so he can call the house.”

Pearl added _home landline_ to the message slip. “Is there any further information?”

“Oh gosh, _lots_ ,” said Arthur. “Did you know that the ancient Egyptians used to mummify cats?”

“About the telephone call?” prompted Pearl.

“Oh right,” said Arthur. “Um. No, not really. Just, make it very, very clear that no one's dead.”

“I will,” said Pearl. “Thank you for calling, Mr. Shappey, I'll pass your message on.”

“Brilliant!” said Arthur.

Pearl hung up and looked back at the message slip. She added the fact about the Egyptians and then wrote _Skip_ at the top and underlined it. She was really looking forward to Martin landing so she could pass that over.


End file.
